


in winter

by Barrhorn



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: (Like always), F/F, Fluff, Frost Spirit Fareeha, Witch Angela, reposted from tumblr
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-01-29
Updated: 2017-01-29
Packaged: 2018-09-20 16:22:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,975
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9499922
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Barrhorn/pseuds/Barrhorn
Summary: When Angela goes for a walk in the snowy woods near her cottage, she only intends on collecting ingredients for her spells. Until she's helped home by a winter elemental.Or to paraphrase hana-blogs: "Lonely witch Mercy living in the Swiss alps alone and comes across a lonely winter frost spirit Pharah roaming the wilds during the coldest seasons. They instantly fall for each other."





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you again to hana-blogs for letting me borrow this/piggyback on her post!
> 
> (I wanted these together in one place, especially if I end up adding onto it.)

“Wake up.”  
Angela groans, suddenly aware of the throbbing pain in her ankle and the tickle of snow falling against her face.  
“Easy now. It looks like you had a nasty fall.”  
A fall? That’s right, she’d been out looking for snowdrop flowers and had lost her footing. Stupid, honestly, but if she’d spent one more day cooped up in her cottage with nothing to do she would’ve lost her mind. Instead, she might’ve lost her life instead - even if the fall hadn’t killed her, she was lucky enough that her spell protecting her from the bitter cold hadn’t worn off yet. Who knows how long she’s been lying in the snow like this?

She opens her eyes, and if it wasn’t for the way her ankle felt like fire she would’ve thought that maybe she’d died anyway.

Standing over her, watching her with some concern, is a gorgeous woman. But one who clearly isn’t human, judging by her blue-tinted skin and the frost and ice that form ornaments in her hair. Angela’s struggling to recall what she knows of various spirits, but hers is not the kind of magic that enlists their aid. Those sorts of spells usually require a certain amount of sacrifice on either side, and that’s never been a price she’s wanted to pay - or force someone else to. No, she deals in herbs and incantations, which do her no good at all staring into the eyes of a winter elemental. “Ah, greetings, good spirit-“

The woman laughs, or at least Angela assumes that’s what the huff of air is that sends several ice crystals dancing through the air. “Shall we save the formalities until you’re not lying in a snowbank?” she says.  
A fair point. Angela sits up with some effort as the spirit takes a step back, remaining out of arm’s reach. She touches her ankle and hisses at the pain, bracing herself before she puts both hands over it (the pain shoots through her and she clutches her teeth on a yell) before gritting through the words of a healing spell. Golden light forms around her hands and sinks into her leg, and she sighs in relief as the magic takes hold.

“So you are a witch,” she hears the spirit murmur as she rolls her ankle, testing it. It’s tender but that will fade in time. “I thought I sensed magic.”  
“Yes,” Angela replies, then offers her hand, leaving it extended even when the spirit stares at it blankly. “Could you give me a hand up? It’ll take a day for the healing to take full effect.”  
But the woman crosses her arms over her chest and looks away. “I cannot,” she says. “My touch burns living things.”  
“I am protected from the cold,” Angela tells her, since clearly her protection spell hasn’t worn off yet.  
But she receives only an astounded - and perhaps offended - look from the spirit. “There is a difference between this,” and she waves a hand at their surroundings, “and myself.”  
“I’m a very good witch,” Angela insists stubbornly, and though the elemental looks at her with one eyebrow skeptically raised, she kindly doesn’t point out the circumstances in which she found her. “Just try,” she urges. “If it hurts me, I can heal it, and if not I would appreciate your further assistance.”

The spirit hesitates for a moment, then slowly reaches out, resting a single finger on the back of Angela’s hand - it feels cool but not unpleasantly so against her skin - but then jerks her hand back as if she’s been burned.  
“Are you alright?” asks Angela worriedly. She hadn’t considered that the protection might not go both ways, that she might be too hot for the elemental.  
“Yes,” the woman says slowly, in wonderment. “And so are you.”  
“A hand then, please?” She might not know much about elementals, but she knows that it’s always better to be polite. Her teacher stressed that she should never meddle with nature, to always remember that her power is limited, and that humans, even witches, can perish easily.

Cautiously, the elemental reaches out again, her hand slowly clasping Angela’s. When the witch makes no move or sound that she’s in any pain or danger, the woman nods and pulls her smoothly to her feet in one easy motion. Well, to her foot, really, as Angela tries to put weight on her ankle and immediately lifts it back into the air, leaning against the woman without thinking as she contemplates her leg and the hill that stands between her and her cottage.  
“I will see you home,” the spirit says suddenly, and Angela looks at her in surprise.  
“I have very little to offer you,” Angela says cautiously, wondering if she’ll be asked for a favor to repay a favor.  
Once again she laughs in snow. “I require nothing in exchange, witch.”  
“Angela.”

The elemental looks at her in silence, her eyes unreadable, before nodding. “Angela, then. And I am Fareeha.”  
She wonders about the way the spirit - Fareeha - says her name, all hoarse and rusty. Like she doesn’t say it often.

_A spirit whose touch is inimical to others,_ she remembers, and suddenly realizes just how few people she must meet. How few must even believe her to be more than just illusion.

—

Fareeha doesn’t know why introducing herself brings that sudden soft understanding to Angela’s eyes, nor does she know why it compels her to move, scooping Angela up into her arms and setting off up the hill.

Angela is warm in her arms, like the midwinter sun, gentle and calming, and Fareeha still can’t believe that she’s even touching her. She touches so few things; the rough bark of trees and soft windswept grass, good solid stone and the giving fur of hibernating animals rarely (and carefully, so carefully, leaving her frost to melt and do no harm). But never a human. Never like this.  
She watches Angela flush and hide her face, instinctively pressing her head against Fareeha’s shoulder, and she marvels at the confidence and trust of this witch and the simple pleasure of feeling her weight against her.

She had sensed the magic first, had known there was someone else around, but she’d assumed it to be another elemental. So rarely did her path cross with others that she had to see who was about. She’d assumed it to be a wind sprite playing with snow flakes, or perhaps a young dryad with more energy than sense.

Never had Fareeha considered that a human might be the cause. She can’t even recall the last time she’s seen a human, and certainly not so close. She’s walked through their settlements before, brushed her fingers across their windows and left delicate patterns across the glass, but most humans didn’t see her, would never recognize her.

Still, she couldn’t just leave someone to die in a snowbank. It’s not the first time, though she’s heard those she saved later tell tales of how their mother or brother appeared to them and spoke, encouraging them onward. She’s never cared about the recognition. Just knowing she’s helped has always been enough.

But when Angela woke up, she saw her. She listened to her.

She reached out her hand to her.

“Does it always do that?”

Startled out of her thoughts, Fareeha looks down into Angela’s awed expression, the witch pointing up and behind them. She looks and sees how, as they pass, frost grows on branches and leaves, tiny spikes rimming them, pointing the way they’ve passed.

“Yes,” she answers, wondering whether Angela will reconsider her easy acceptance. “Do you want me to try and stop?”  
Angela shakes her head, her eyes unwavering from the trees. “No. It’s beautiful.”

_As are you._ Fareeha almost says it.

—

When they return to Angela’s cottage, Fareeha places her back down on her feet as gently as possible, and they linger at the doorway, unsure of how to proceed but neither one wanting to leave it there. Angela invites her in, but Fareeha declines, worried less about how it would affect her and more about how much damage she would cause to Angela’s home. But she promises to return the next day, to see how Angela is faring.

Angela stays up all night reading, and when Fareeha arrives she finds the witch with dark smudges under her eyes and a pleased smile, and she insists that the elemental come inside.

Entering cautiously, Fareeha notices how nothing freezes in her footsteps, no frost forms under her fingertips, how the fire seems to give off no heat. She frowns at that last one, until Angela laughs and explains that she’s found a spell - and she’s off and running into some complex explanation of her magic that Fareeha doesn’t really understand, but it dawns on her that Angela did all of this just to make her comfortable, to make her welcome.

She makes some comment about what Angela’s other visitors must think, and the witch stammers out that she really doesn’t get many, in a tone that Fareeha interprets to mean as no visitors whatsoever. And she thinks maybe she understands.

They spend the winter together. Angela constantly refreshes her protection from the cold spell and studies and experiments to improve it, to make it permanent. Fareeha brings her ingredients from her travels and patiently helps clean up most of the messes from her failures, except for that one time, which they never speak of ever again.

Fareeha steals Angela away from her books to show her the mountains and the woods, the lynx and the ibex. Angela charms a wind spirit into taking them up to a summit one evening, and they look out over the world until Angela has trouble fully catching her breath, and then they ride the snow back down. Fareeha protects her the whole way, but still when they get to the bottom of the mountain Angela refuses to even consider repeating the experience.

Angela loves her desperately, but the days are getting longer.

Fareeha loves her desperately, but the temperature is rising.

“I must go,” Fareeha tells her reluctantly one night. “I must walk the mountains until snow falls again.”  
Though Angela looks stricken, she nods.

In the middle of summer, Angela is studying snow.

In the middle of her travels, Fareeha finds her feet ever turning towards the cottage.

—

Angela wakes one late fall morning and glances out of the window to see a thin coat of frost against the glass. She smiles at the reminder of the oncoming winter while her coffee brews, and then she realizes the potential danger, darting out of the door to see how her precious herbs are doing-

And stops just off the steps when she sees Fareeha seated on the grass, frost spread around her everywhere except for Angela’s garden. “I wouldn’t let any harm come to them,” she smirks, until Angela lets out a cry and throws herself forward. Fareeha’s eyes widen in alarm and she tries to move back with a strangled, “The spell-“

And then Angela’s arms are wrapped around her neck with her weight pleasantly pressed against Fareeha’s chest and legs, and she’s gently warm and content, her breath coming quickly against Fareeha’s ear.  
“…You found a way to make it permanent,” Fareeha says quietly, returning the embrace, sensing the magic and knowing none had been cast that day.  
“Yes,” Angela says. “I’m a very good witch.” The pride in her voice quickly cedes to laughter, and Fareeha silences her with a kiss.


	2. Chapter 2

The first winter they spend together is a cautious one, filled with slow, gentle experimentation. After all, they don’t have to just learn each other, but also how human and spirit can coincide. Fareeha doesn’t need to sleep in the same way that Angela does, and so half the night she spends awake and alone, afraid to brush some stray hair out of Angela’s face for fear of harming her. Angela wakes those next mornings and finds her supplies restocked, jars of plants and bark brimming with fresh additions. She looks to where Fareeha is sitting stiffly before refreshing her cold protection spell with a pinch of herbs and a few murmured words. Only then does she go to thank Fareeha with a kiss; only then do Fareeha’s shoulders relax as Angela rests her forehead against hers with a warm smile.

But if there is anxiety, there is also joy. They sit on the bed facing each other, Fareeha’s hands cupped around Angela’s as she forms figures of frost and snow between them. Angela loves to see Fareeha’s magic, to compare it to her own, but that analytical mindset always gives way to laughter and innocent wonder. They go for walks together and talk quietly, and when they return in the evening Angela coaxes Fareeha to try tastes of her food. Her house feels full for the first time; it’s the least lonely they’ve ever been.

The permanence of the protection spell makes the next fall and winter easier, even if Fareeha’s fingers still occasionally hesitate a centimeter from Angela’s skin. Touching her is still a marvel, one she indulges in more often, sliding her arms around Angela’s waist simply because she can. At night, Angela tugs her into bed so she can fall asleep with her head tucked under Fareeha’s chin. While Fareeha still wakes halfway through the night and slips out to walk the woods, now she does so peacefully, listening to owls as her footprints fill in behind her. And Angela wakes in the morning to Fareeha slipping back into bed, never as stealthily as she thinks. Angela always forgives her.

But this makes parting the second time harder, and as Fareeha lingers on the doorstep, Angela offers her something: a silver silhouette of a crow in flight hung on a simple cord. When Fareeha slips it around her neck and it settles against the hollow of her throat, she smiles at the pleasant buzz of Angela’s magic that she can feel in it.  
“It’s a homecoming charm,” Angela says, and Fareeha tilts her face up for a kiss. They both know that Fareeha doesn’t need the charm to find her way back, but the thought is sweet, the conceit of this being her home as comforting and as growingly familiar as Angela’s body against hers.  
She presses a hand to the window by the door, letting her magic flow through her, until a delicate pattern of frost lives in the corner, safe between the panes. “I will know if this is disturbed,” Fareeha tells Angela, who is currently tracing it with a single finger. “Even in the middle of summer I will come.”  
“Not if it hurts you,” Angela insists quietly, but Fareeha cannot promise so.

Thankfully, it is not something that is tested, and they come back together eagerly for their third winter. And none too soon, for it’s a hard winter by any mortal standard. Deep snow blankets the region, muffling all sounds of movement, and temperatures plunge so low at night that sometimes they hear trees exploding from their own expanding sap.

Fareeha, of course, delights in the weather, never letting it stop her walks even at its worst, but Angela huddles under blankets and clings to mugs of hot drinks and to Fareeha herself.  
“I can’t possibly help,” Fareeha tells her, amused. Angela always feels warm to her; surely she must feel cool to Angela.  
“You help,” Angela murmurs, pressing into her side until Fareeha laughs and puts an arm around her.

It’s not quite as funny when Fareeha has to help Angela forge a path to the nearby village to treat illnesses and restock her own shelves.

It loses all trace of humor when their evening is disturbed by a frantic pounding at the door, which Angela opens to a distraught parent missing his two children. There is no time to admire the snowflakes that fall in soft clumps or to enjoy the wind that pulls at their hair and plucks at their clothes. Angela tracks the children with her magic, using the toys their father brought. Fareeha shields Angela from the snow and cold, clearing the way in front of her feet so that Angela does not have to divide her attention from the spell.

They find the children, who have dug themselves a snow cave, huddled together and breathing but unconscious. And Fareeha _wants_ to reach out, wants to take them into her arms and carry them safely back to the cottage, and she forces herself to step back when she realizes just how close she’s let herself come.

She would hurt them. She would make it worse. And there’s a sick, tight feeling in her chest at the reminder that she’s not supposed to be around humans, not meant to interact with them. Four years ago she would never have approached within arms reach.

“Fareeha,” Angela says softly as the golden glow of healing magics sink into the children, and the spirit’s attention immediately goes to her, noting with some concern just how worn she looks. “I don’t think I can do this on my own.”  
“If you can protect them-“ But Fareeha cuts herself off with Angela’s slow shake of her head. “Then take some of my strength,” she offers instead, holding out her hand. Angela needs magic, after all, and what is she but magic?  
Angela takes her hand, slowly twining their fingers together. “I was always taught that I’d pay more than I received when bargaining with spirits,” she says, a wry smile twisting her lips. “What’s the price of this help?”  
“It is a gift, freely given,” Fareeha recites formally, just in case. Just to make it proper, and set no ties between them.  
Her response pulls a real smile from Angela, just before Fareeha starts slowly feeding her energy, watching how Angela gradually straightens, shoulders going back, her own eyebrows starting to rise at just how much energy Angela needs, how wan her magic reserves are.

Apart from helping the villagers, she hasn’t been casting a lot or drawing on her magic. So what could have drained her so much-

It hits Fareeha in a flash, so startling that she almost loses the connection between her and Angela. The cold protection spells that Angela permanently cast on herself and the cottage, so that Fareeha could be with her freely, without worry.

Just what had that cost her?

Angela breaks their connection, pulling her hand away, watching Fareeha with understanding in her eyes just as when they first met. “Later,” she says quietly. “After the children are safe.”  
Which is the only reason for delay that Fareeha cannot argue with.

Still, it weighs heavily on her mind as they retrace their steps, as she stands aside as the father rushes to meet them in the yard, as Angela glances at her before disappearing into the cottage when the reunited family leaves.

Lingering in the snow, Fareeha breathes in the cold air that is so much a part of her, and wonders at the absolute foolishness of a spirit falling in love with a mortal.

She steps inside to where Angela is waiting for her, the lines of concern etched across her face easing and a soft sigh escaping her at Fareeha’s entrance. Like she hadn’t been sure that Fareeha would actually follow. “It’s worth it,” she says without preamble, and Fareeha wastes no time either, striding over to her and brushing the back of her fingers across Angela’s cheek. It’s not as comforting as it should be, not when she’s wondering how she could ever give this up. If she can. If she should.  
“You’ll burn yourself out,” Fareeha objects quietly. “You could kill yourself.”  
“I could die tomorrow. I could live normally for several more decades, or use my magic to live another century. All without being able to touch you.” Angela closes her eyes and turns her face into Fareeha’s caress, then takes a deep, steadying breath. Her blue eyes open and find Fareeha’s with nothing but determination in them. “I’d rather live twenty years with you.”

A choking grief rises in Fareeha’s throat. She’s known always that she would exist after Angela, had accepted that happiness now would be paid in pain later. It’s not the fact of death that so bothers her, that bows her head until Angela’s hands cup her cheeks as she whispers soothingly to her. Every part of nature is a fight to survive, from the trees that turn toward the sun to the never-ending chase of predator and prey. It’s the terrible acceptance in Angela’s tone, to face her own death and choose it so calmly, that stirs a kind of dread in the spirit who has never had to confront the idea that she might one day no longer be.

“It’s not my choice to make,” Fareeha says softly.  
“No it isn’t,” Angela says, her lips brushing the corners of Fareeha’s eyes, as if she expected to find tears there.  
Fareeha almost wishes she could cry. Maybe then it wouldn’t hurt so much.

Leaving for the summer is nearly impossible, and the cold lingers in the woods well into spring.

Fareeha plays with the charm around her neck more often, feeling the buzz run through her fingers. She wonders if it will always lead her to the cottage, even after it lies empty, or if it will fall silent in time.

She can’t stand the thought of either, and it galvanizes her to go to a particular mountain, to stand on its peak and whisper into the wind, “Mother Winter, I need you.”  
And the storm descends on her.

—

Angela is reading in her cottage when the door blows open and the wind howls through, chilling her to the bone even through her layers of protection. She drops the book to raise her arms to shield herself, but the wind dies just as suddenly as it began. When she dares to look, there’s a woman with pure white hair standing in the middle of her sitting room, ice and snow starting to radiate out across the floor.  
“Who-“  
“You must be the witch Fareeha mentioned,” the woman interrupts, and in her voice are avalanches and crackling ice.  
Angela stiffens at the name. “Where is she?” she demands, even though this elemental is ripping through all her wards, could likely destroy her in seconds. (She glances at the frost pattern in her front window and takes some comfort in the fact that it looks unchanged.)  
“Where I need her to be. She made a deal with me.”

Angela shivers, not only from the cold, feeling her heart sink in her chest. “For what?”  
“For you to have another choice.”

—

There is a village in the mountains where winter comes early and leaves late, and the townsfolk smile indulgently at the legend of two lovers meeting and parting with the seasons.

There is a village where the children are given small charms, so that if they are lost the spirits know that there is someone who cares for them and is waiting for them to come home.

There is a village that celebrates its two guardians, Frost and Mercy. One the protector of their region, their woods and homes, charged with watching after humans for her crime of loving one. And one who watches over the people themselves, in all their illnesses and tragedies, so that she might never forget from whence she came.

The cottage has disappeared into the woods, the paths leading to it overgrown and forgotten. But hundreds of years later Fareeha can still follow Angela’s magic and her own to the front door, to be greeted with Angela’s arms around her neck and a kiss.

It snows in September that year.


End file.
